








SERIA 


MR. BUCKINGHAM’S ADDRESS | 


Muazsnchwsetts Charitable Mechanic Vasuriatn, 
FIFTEENTH TRIENNIAL FESTIVAL, 


OCTOBER 1,-1851. 





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AN 


ADDRESS 


DELIVERED BEFORE THE 


Magiorhnsetts Charttable Mechanic Aesuciation, 


ON THE OCCASION OF THEIR 


Vi FIFTEENTH TRIENNIAL FESTIVAL, 


OCTOBER. £8:'5'h. 





BY JOSEPH H. BUCKINGHAM, 
A fllember of the Association. 


BAST ONG: 
PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 42 CONGRESS STREET. 
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Boston, October 4, 1851. 


Dear Sir, 
At a Quarterly Meeting of the Massachusetts Charitable 
Mechanic Association, held at the Masonic Temple, October 1, 1851, 


the undersigned were appointed a Committee to transmit to you the 


following vote: | 

‘That the thanks of the Association be presented to Josrepn H. 
Bucxineuam, Esq., for his able and interesting Address delivered on 
our Fifteenth Triennial Celebration, and to request a copy for the 


press.” 
Trusting that you will find it convenient to comply with this request 
of the Association, we remain, 
Dear Sir, very respectfully, 
Your obedient servants, 
W. C. BOND. 


OSMYN BREWSTER. 
FRED. H. STIMPSON. 


To Joseru H. Bucxinenam, Esq. 


Boston, Oct. 7, 1851. 


GENTLEMEN, 
I am much gratified by the vote of the Association, which you 


have communicated in your note of this day. In sending you a copy 
of my Address, allow me to express my most respectful acknowledg- 
ments to you and all the members of the Massachusetts Charitable 
Mechanic Association, for their kindness and consideration. 


Yours, very respectfully, 
JOSEPH H. BUCKINGHAM. 


Messrs. W. C. Bonn, 
Osmyn Brewster, 
Frep. H. Stimpson, 


Committee M. C. M. A. 



































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ADDRESS. 


Mr. President, 
and Gentlemen of this Association : 


We have come up here to-day, to lay our 
offerings of sympathy and affection upon an altar 
dedicated to Friendship and Charity; to acknowl- 
edge the blessings of Divine Providence; to re- 
member the virtues of our Fathers; and to renew 
the promises we have made, to promote mutual 
good offices and fellowship by “assisting the neces- 
sitous, encouraging the ingenious, and in rewarding 
fidelity.” 

Of those who laid the corner stone of this our 
temple, there is but one left to us,—a gentleman 
now on the verge of ninety years of age, an example 
to his younger brethren, of good habits, a temperate 
life and unsullied character. 

And it is good for us to meet thus once in three 
years. It was a wise provision that was incorpora- 
ted into our Constitution, that we should observe 
this Festival, and wisely has it been adhered to. 
May it never be abandoned. It is good that we 
should have these special occasions appointed, that 


6 


we may take advantage of them to encourage us in 
the work we have undertaken. ‘The period that 
intervenes is not too long for us to forget, nor yet 
short enough to allow us to be too familiar with, all 
the incidents that transpire between each, which 
are peculiar and particularly interesting to ourselves 
as a class. Our Association is composed of nearly 
seven hundred members; and there is no other, 
certainly no better mode by which they can all be 
brought together,—all at once,—as one great family. 
Our other meetings are mainly meetings for busi- 
ness; our triennial exhibitions have in view the 
promulgation to the public of our improvement in 
skill, and our advance in the arts. 

But, on such a day as this, a day devoted to social 
intercourse, we become more personally acquainted, 
and the occasion is hailed with pleasure as the 
means of developing and assisting in permanently 
securing, the moral and benevolent character of our 
Association. 

Since the last Festival we have been called to 
mourn the loss by death of twenty-four of our num- 
ber, all of whom were useful and respected members, 
many far advanced in life, and several prominent 
in the positions they had held before the public. 
This would be a fitting occasion for an extended 
notice of those who have passed away, leaving only 
to their immediate connections the recollection of 
their usefulness in the daily walks of life; but mate- 
rials for the compilation of such a memorial are 
seldom to be obtained without much labor and long 
investigation. 


yi 


Of most of those to whom I now refer, it is to be 
regretted that nearly all that is known to the public, 
was contained in a few short newspaper notices, 
kindly and affectionately written, and, it is probable, 
forgotten almost as soon as read. ‘T'wo on the list 
were known to me as men of untiring industry, 
with something similar in the character of their 
minds, who have, in their sphere, done much in 
the way of collecting statistics of the personal and 
public history of their own city. Without assuming 
to be scholars, they spent much time and much 
more labor than was ever repaid to them by any 
pecuniary success, in furnishing materials for those 
who come after them, to work up; and. what 
they could not themselves secure, their enter- 
prise pointed out to others the road to accomplish. 
Long and severe ill health marked the close of their 
days, embittered, perhaps, by the consciousness that 
those dependent upon them were to be left but 
poorly provided for. 

Two others, brought up to the same trade, were 
more fortunate in health and in the possession of 
wealth; one having received, at various times, the 
highest honors in the gift of his State and City ; the 
other being able to enjoy, in retirement in the coun- 
try, the fruits of a well-spent life and the blessings 
of a large and happy family. ‘The name of another 
is identified with the most useful improvements and 
inventions for the benefit of commerce; he was 
better known throughout the country for his system 
of light-houses, than he would have been as the 
author of learned dissertations and huge folios, 


ee 


One other on the list, was but slightly known to 
me. I remember him, in my early youth, as a 
man of generous disposition, a prosperous and enter- 
prismg mechanic, having many hands in his employ, 
who were always well taught in their trade and 
well paid for their work. ‘The world went well 
with him, and at one time he might have looked 
with confidence to an old age of competence, as the 
reward of faithfulness and integrity. But misfor- 
tunes came—not by any fault of his, but by the 
trusting nature of his disposition, and too great a 
reliance upon those whose rash speculation or wicked 
recklessness did not prevent their risking the prop- 
erty of others, when it was wanted for their own 
uses. Old age,—an honorable old age,—overtook 
him, it is true; but it was an old age of toil and 
comparative poverty. ‘Those who had been the 
occasion of his downfall had either gone before him, 
or lived in splendor, unmindful, if indeed they were 
aware of the fact, that they might do something 
now to repair the evils which they once assisted to 
create. Some men die, and their virtues are unsung ; 
while some, who are at least no more worthy, are 
followed to the grave by long processions, and their 
characters are eulogized from the pulpit by those 
who have realized the knowledge of the virtue there 
is in success. 

If they were known to me, I should gladly avail 
myself of this opportunity to chronicle the events 
in the unpretending lives of all whose names are 
before me as having, within the last three years, 
been stricken by the hand of death from our roll. 


. 2 


Of many a man who has heretofore enjoyed the 
benefits of our Association, the only epitaph, so far 
as the world is concerned, was many years ago 
written by the poet :— 


“The clouds and sunbeams, o’er his eye 
That once their shades and glory threw, 
Have left in yonder silent sky 
No vestige where they flew. 


“The annals of the human race, 
Their ruins since the world began, 
Of him afford no other trace 
Than this,—THERE LIVED A MAN.” 


Lessons upon the mutability of human affairs 
are to be drawn from every one’s experience ; and | 
may well say, in the words of an English writer, 
that “*so many of those who but a few months ago 
constituted a portion of the present of my own time, 
are become so completely of the past, that I cannot 
look back without chronicling death after death, so 
as to force the considerations we too often try to 
put far from us, as to the uncertainty of life. We 
are all, indeed, ready to admit the uncertainty of 
this precious treasure ; yet we act as if it were, at 
least, as enduring as the sky above us, or the earth 
upon which we tread.” 

The founders of our Association, having been active 
at an earlier day in the accomplishment of one good 
work, thought it their duty to combine and assume 
a position towards each other that should enhance 
their own usefulness and benefit their successors. 
How far we have followed their examples of indus- 
try and usefulness, how faithfully we have obeyed 


2 


10 


their injunction to ‘ be just and fear not,” let each 
one of us ask his own conscience. 

In other countries, circumstances which it is not 
necessary to trace out, have placed the Mechanic in 
a social and political condition very different from 
that which he enjoys in this. In almost all other 
parts of the world he has always stood, and to this 
day stands, at a lower grade in public estimation 
than he does in New England. The continually 
growing importance of the arts seems every where 
but here, to tend to the development of resources, 
and the accumulation of wealth alone, without 
raising the inventor or the workman, except in a 
comparatively few memorable instances, higher 
than to a subordinate rank. In America, thank 
Heaven, it is different. ‘This is partly owing to our 
liberal and free institutions. But in looking at the 
true state of the case, we find that our free institu- 
tions were originally the work of the Mechanics 
themselves. Our Fathers came to this country 
poor. ‘They labored with their hands; they toiled 
for themselves and their families; and not as the 
retainers of an aristocracy of wealth or power. In 
a new and unbroken land they carved out their own 
fortunes, and worked their way in honesty and 
industry to a position of honor, enabling them to 
bequeath to their successors a good name and a rich 
inheritance of morality and principle. ‘They taught 
their children, as well as the savages around them, 
the arts of civilized life ; and their children have, by 
the blessing of God, improved upon the lessons they 


vT 


had set them to learn. The pupils have outstripped 
their masters in the race. 

In ‘time, from being a dependent and a sub- 
servient, our Fathers became a rebellious and an 
independent people. They built for themselves an 
aristocracy, not inheriting rank and wealth, but an 
aristocracy whose coat of arms are the symbols of 
hard labor, whose mottoes.are the records of deeds 
performed in private and in public by the honest 
minded and strong thinking Mechanics. ‘Their 
College of Heraldry contains no archives devoted to 
deeds of arms, no histories of the birth of Kings 
and Queens, no shameless stories of the union of 
usurping lords with shameless partners in intrigue 
and guilt. 

The nights and days which preceded the birth 
of American Independence, were spent by Boston 
Mechanics in the low, dark rooms of the Green 
Dragon Tavern, where, taking counsel together, 
they fomented a Revolution which has shaken, in 
time, all the thrones of Europe, and has led to the 
formation of a government that now defies the 
world,—founded an order with neither stars nor 
garters for its emblems, nor requiring for its main- 
tenance great wealth or illustrious descent, but with 
a charter of nobility having for its foundation indus- 
try, honor, benevolence and charity. 

In those same dark rooms, after the work so well 
Jaid out by Boston Mechanics had been finished, 
and had proved acceptable to the people, Boston 
Mechanics again assembled, and laid the foundation 
of another structure. The architects of one pile 


12 


became the builders of another. Some of the same 
men, who worked at the commencement of the 
Revolution to establish a Government for a people, 
again applied their minds to the establishment of an 
Association that in its day has proved of incalculable 
service to themselves and their successors. ‘The 
name of Paul Revere is to be found in the accounts 
of all the early meetings of the Mechanics of 
Boston in aid of the Revolution, and his name is 
inscribed on the record of the first meeting of this 
Association. ‘The Green Dragon Tavern was the 
scene of the first act of rebellion to Great Britain, 
and it was the scene of the first meeting for the 
formation of a Society for mutual benefit and pro- 
tection. ‘The rebellion was the foundation of an 
Empire. ‘The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic 
Association will be the means, among others, of 
keeping that foundation sure ; its members will raise 
no rude hands to assist in pulling it down. 

The object of the first meetings was not alone to 
obtain redress of present wrongs, it was to devise 
means for the protection of civil liberty throughout 
the land. The object of the second gatherings was 
for the protection of moral worth. ‘The first com- 
pact was a charitable compact, for the benefit of the 
whole human race ; and that having proved success- 
ful, a second was formed with a view to the more 
immediate benefit of its individual members. The 
first was general; but the second, although more 
partial, has proved, and will continue to prove, it is 
hoped, no less important and beneficial to the whole 
human family. 


13 


Other classes of society have claimed a higher 
rank than the Mechanics, and to some degree those 
claims have been allowed. ‘Talent will always 
prove the means of exaltation. Wealth will always 
presume upon the influence it can exert over those 
who do not possess it. But talent belongs to no 
class, and wealth is not confined to any circle. ‘The 
Mechanics of this country possess both talent and 
wealth ; and although the Merchant, by an easier 
and more speedy road, acquires property which the 
scholar may inherit, the Mechanic, with his talent 
and his wealth, knows better how to use the posi- 
tion both can give him. 

In looking back, in the history of this country, 
one cannot but be struck with the prominent part 
which has been filled on all occasions by the Me- 
chanics. ‘The Revolution having been successful, 
and the independence of the States secured, the 
first cry for help came from the Merchants. In those 
days there were, in fact, only two classes of society, 
for we had not then become an agricultural or a 
manufacturing people. Peace had its evils as well 
as War, in a country not yet well established in all 
its institutions; and the Americans, almost immedi- 
ately after the din of war had ceased, were inun- 
dated with goods from abroad, which were sold at any 
price that could be obtained, to the injury of all the 
Mechanics. It was not long before the Merchants 
began to find that English vessels filled the ports 
and brought freights to the ruin of their own ships. 
The citizen soldier, released from duty in the camp, 
could find no work to do in the work-shop or in the 


14 


field. ‘‘ British ships came freely and British goods 
came plentifully ; while to American ships and 
American products there was neither protection on 
the one side, nor the equivalent of reciprocal free 
trade on the other.” ‘The Merchants, ever prompt 
to act when their capital is endangered, and fruitful 
of expedient when they see all the money going out 
of the country, called upon the people to come to 
their assistance. A committee was raised which, 
after inventing several other schemes, but all to no 
purpose, called upon the people to refuse ‘ to buy 
or use goods imported in British vessels.”” ‘The 
Mechanics came forward in this emergency ; and in 
the Mechanics the Merchants found their best and 
most valuable friends, for they came promptly at the 
call, bringing with them willing hands and with 
words of sober truth and advice upon their lips. 
The Chairman of the Mechanics’? Committee was 
again Paul Revere, the brass founder, a man who 
knew the true science of political economy better 
than many who have made it their study for a life- 
time. In presenting his memorial he remarked to 
John Hancock, the Chairman of the Merchants’ 
Committee, that the Mechanics agreed that such 
goods ought not to be purchased, but—he very sig- 
nificantly added—“ British goods ought not to be 
brought nor consumed at all. If commerce was 
ruined by British ships, the Mechanics were ruined 
by the importation of British manufactures. What 
difference,”’ said he, ‘‘ does it make to us, whether 
hats, shoes, boots, handkerchiefs, tin-ware, brass- 
ware, cutlery, and every other article come in British 


15 


ships, or come in your ships; since, in whatever 
ships they come they take away our means of 
living?” This was the first promulgation of the 
doctrine and policy which led to the adoption of 
various plans for the protection of Domestic Industry 
in the United States. 

Again, at a later day, the Mechanics were promi- 
nently useful as well as necessary to the country ; 
and Boston Mechanics were, as before, the main 
stay, the principal means of carrying out a measure 
of public policy. The adoption of the Constitution, 
itis well known, was not secured except by the 
action of Massachusetts; and the Massachusetts 
Convention hesitated until impelled to action by the 
Boston Mechanics. History tells us that if Massa- 
chusetts had withheld her assent, many other States 
would have rejected it; and also that it would not 
have been adopted by this State, if the Boston 
Mechanics had not sent to the Convention a strong 
committee, with convincing resolutions in its favor. 
When these gentlemen appeared, Mr. Adams, the 
President, asked—‘*‘ How many Mechanics were 
present when these resolutions were adopted  ” 

‘¢ More, Sir,” was the reply, “than the Green 
Dragon could hold.” 

‘¢ And where were the rest, Mr. Revere?” 

‘In the streets, Sir.” 

«¢ And how many were in the streets ? ” 

‘More, Sir, than there are stars in the sky.” 

This little incident, which has been told more 
fully and in better language than mine, was the 
turning point, and decided the fate of the Constitu- 


16 


tion. .It was the aid of the Boston Mechanics that 
was relied upon, on all occasions. ‘They planned, 
they advised, and they enforced measures the wis- 
dom of which is acknowledged every where to the 
present day.» — 

| have shown that the American Government and 
the first Constitution of these United States, were 
the work originally of the Mechanics. It has always 
been the fortune of the Mechanics to be the back-bone 
of the prosperity of the country. Standing armies 
are sometimes necessary for particular occasions, but 
there is a standing soldiery of moral power neces- 
sary in every nation as a reserve to be relied upon 
to secure permanency. That moral power in this 
country is the Mechanic interest, and the good work 
which the Mechanics began they have ever since 
been relied upon to finish. 

One of the most noted incidents in the history of 
the present year, is that of the Great Exhibition, in 
the Crystal Palace at London, and it will furnish to 
the world an assurance of two remarkable truths :— 
That our Mechanics are among the first in the world ; 
and that England’s supremacy in all things no longer 
exists. However ardently we may have desired the 
one, and however reluctantly they may acknowledge 
the other, both facts are now indisputable. I[ am 
far from desiring to attribute unworthy motives to 
others, but I have looked upon this project of the 
English, from its first promulgation, as an effort to 
keep alive the old war upon all other countries, 
and especially upon America. ‘The mind that con- 
ceived and the heads that carried out that project 


17 


were sagacious; and if they did not succeed en- 
tirely to their satisfaction, it was not for want of 
well-directed effort. 

The boasted empire of the seas belonged to 
England; she once controlled the trade of the 
world; and she was once the manufacturer for all 
nations. But a change was felt to be coming over 
her prosperity. Her statesmen saw it. And it 
Was necessary to stay the current that slowly but 
surely was running against her power. It is unnec- 


_ essary to detail the struggles that have, from time to 


time been made, to force upon America her goods, 
nor the successful efforts Americans have made, by 
means of systems of internal improvement and 
tariffs for the protection of domestic industry — 
systems reluctantly adopted at last, after long oppo- 
sition from the Merchants and much debate among 
the Politicians at Washington—systems only adopted 
in obedience to the moral weight of the representa- 
tives of the mechanic interest. 

But I may be pardoned if I take up a few 
moments of your time in referring to well authen- 
ticated facts, to show what feelings and_princi- 
ples have always governed British statesmen. As 
long ago as 1699, a systematic course of restric- 
tions on colonial manufactures was commenced, 
and Lord Chatham said in Parliament that ‘he 
would not have the Americans make even a hob- 
nail,’ a sentiment that was echoed by many of 
his hearers, and to which another member of that 
body added, ‘‘nor a razor to shave their beards.” 
In 1816, the present Lord Brougham said that it was 

3 


18 


well worth while, by a glut, to stifle in the cradle 
those rising manufactories in the United States 
which the then late war had forced into existence. 
Another British minister confessed, long ago, that 
the British policy was nothing more nor less than to 
get a monopoly of all markets, and to prevent other 
nations, one and all, from engaging in manufactures. 
And English writers on the subject of trade have 
always complained, because the surplus of their 
manufactures could not be forced upon the United 
States along with the surplus of their pauper popu- 
lation. t 

Here is the secret origin of the World’s Fair 
at London. The world was to be invited, and 
the world was invited, to send specimens of the 
products of all nations to England for exhibition. 
Products of the earth and of the sea were not 
excluded, it is true; but the products of the loom 
and the anvil, of the bench and the workshop, were 
what was particularly desired. The great glass 
museum was well filled with curiosities from all 
other points of the compass, the North and the East 
and the South, but not from the West. And when 
the large space that was so generously appropriated 
to the Americans was found to be almost tenantless, 
or at best occupied with only a few Yankee no- 
tions, a feeling of disappointment was exhibited 
by all parties. The end and aim of the scheme 
had not been attained; and the Americans, in- 
stead of being seduced into the folly of showing 
to the British manufacturers on their own ground, 
samples of all the wares which are saleable in this 


19 


country, to be copied and sent back to us in a glut, 
are able, for a time at least, to keep possession of 
their own legitimate field of operations. 

I am aware that I may be told that this is not so 
clearly the sole object had in view by the English, in 
establishing this great World’s Fair; and it is true 
that we have few or no secrets, as to the state of our 
trades, that cannot easily be obtained by other and 
less gigantic means. Curious and plodding agents, 
coming to this country, can see for themselves and 
make report to their masters at home. But to 
accomplish the whole object would require time and 
laborious research, in the hands of many and pecu- 
liarly and practically instructed men. Such has been 
the plan of operations heretofore, and it has not been 
successful ; for while one kind of manufacture was 
in the course of being ruined, another was springing 
into existence to take its place. Lord Brougham’s 
glut, could in this way effect but one trade at a time ; 
but let all our manufacturers exhibit their wares at 
one time, on the very doors of their English rivals, 
and they would stand a very good chance of being 
ruined, at one single blow, by having similar goods 
forced, at all risk and at any cost, upon all the mar- 
kets of the world to which we now have access, 
even our own. Our Mechanics and our Manufac- 
turers would thus be crippled at once, and through 
their own folly. 

The exhibitions by the different Mechanic Asso- 
ciations in this country are altogether of a different 
character, and are calculated to have a different 
effect. It is not necessary here to speak of those 


20 


of our own Society, for their benefits to our own 
people are too well known to be repeated. ‘They 
encourage instead of ruining ourselves, and their 
tendency thus far has been to increase still more, 
from year to year, the power and influence of the 
Mechanics as a distinct class. Of our own exhibi- 
tions, the last was eminently the most successful and 
useful; the volume containing the reports of the 
different committees of judges is not only valuable 
as a history of new inventions, but as showing the 
progress of our Mechanics in intelligence and knowl- 
edge. Although we have been successful in com- 
peting with other nations, and have shown the world 
that the American Mechanics stand unrivalled for 
invention and improvement, for integrity and intel- 
ligence, they have many lessons yet to learn before 
they can claim the merit of supremacy. 

The Mechanics of this country commenced the 
building of an empire destined to become larger 
than all the rest of the civilized world ; and their 
work, so well begun, has been nobly carried out. 
But it cannot be denied that, up to the present time, 
in respect to matters belonging more immediately to 
our productions, we have done more for invention 
than for perfection.’ Our artisans have discovered, 
patented and published to the world many modes 
of saving labor, of increasing mechanical power, and 
reducing expense. But in many instances we have 
left our machines, although skillfully arranged and 
with principles well laid out, for others to complete. 
Other nations have been ready to take advantage of 
our remissness in this respect, and hence the great 


21 


superiority exhibited by the English in their steam 
engines for use on the sea, their often-times success- 
ful application of systems, the thought, the plan of 
which was the work of the brain of our own Me- 
chanics. We are apt to be too much in a hurry to 
finish what we have begun, and we have put too 
many of our plans in operation before they were 
entirely completed. ‘This is in part owing to the 
abandonment, in a great degree, of the old system of 
apprenticeship, and this is an evil that grows upon 
us every day. ‘Time was, when no man was 
allowed to be a journeyman or a master, until he 
had served in all the branches of his trade from boy- 
hood up, and was pronounced to be perfect in all. 
But in these days, the man or the boy, or the girl, 
who can set types, is a printer, even if he know 
nothing of the uses of the shooting stick, much 
less how to impose a form. The hard-fisted laborer 
calls himself a carpenter, because he is expert at 
driving a nail, knowing nothing how to handle a 
plane. He who can peg the largest quantity of 
soles in a day, claims to be a shoemaker, though he 
is but a cobbler at best, and cannot fashion a boot, 
or mend a rip. 

But it is to be hoped that the progress of inven- 
tion, and the distribution of the many kinds of work 
among various classes of workmen, will not eventu- 
ally do away altogether with the practice of making 
proficients in all branches of all trades, so that we 
shall not be dependent upon the amateur salesman 
or purchaser, for opinions as to the true value of the 
articles submitted for inspection. 


a4 


Gentlemen, you honored me with a call to address 
you on this occasion,-an honor which | duly appre- 
ciate and regard. I have endeavored to show that 
the Mechanics have claims to be considered the first 
class in the community—that they are rightfully the 
lineal descendants of an aristocracy of a country 
whose bounds are now on two seas, on the east and 
the west, and which may be destined to be extended, 
perhaps within the period of the present generation, 
to the two other seas, on the north and the south. 

Such being our claim to an inheritance boundless 
and unimpeachable, it becomes us to see that we 
maintain it in honor, that we live up to our preten- 
sions. In order to do this, we must to ourselves be 
true. ‘The legacy of virtue, benevolence and charity, 
that was bequeathed to us by the early Mechanics 
of Boston, and which we bound ourselves to pre- 
serve when each one signed this constitution, must 
be maintained without faltering or hesitation. I have 
entered into no statistics to show how much good 
we have done by our committees of relief, nor how 
much we have had to do with. The figures might 
tell a tale flattering to our pride; that is the busi- 
ness of the government, which is to be performed 
at the annual meetings. But the real charity that 
has been dispensed is, and always will be, un- 
written. Charity does not consist in the regular 
contribution of certain sums of money, so much as 
in the words of comfort that reach only the ear of 
the recipient, and the tone of encouragement spoken 
in kindness to the young and the unfortunate. 


23 


Many of us have been called to pursuits not 
requiring any longer the constant use of the tools 
of trade ; but few, if any such, ever manifest a desire 
to resign their membership, and I know of none such 
who do not still consider it a privilege to be ranked 
as Mechanics. 

I have detained you long enough; the matters 
which come up on such an occasion are many and 
interesting ; they multiply before me as I proceed, 
and it would be but to tax your patience unneces- 
sarily should I not now stop. But before I close, 
allow me one moment to express the hope that, as 
the Mechanics of Boston were the first to move in 
the acts which led to the establishment of our 
National Independence ; as the Mechanics of Boston 
were the means of securing to the confederated 
States a Constitution binding together all classes 
and all sects, at the North and the South, the East 
and the West, no future historian shall have cause 
to record that any Massachusetts Mechanic ever 
raised his voice or used his tongue to encourage the 
severance of a Union, which has for so many years 
shed the light of peace, and benevolence, and 


charity, upon a happy and prosperous people! 


ORDER OF SERVICES 


AT THE 


FIE TEEN TAs TRIEN NDA Dok BSP eae 


CHANT. 


—_———= 


PRAYER, BY REV. DR. LYMAN BEECHER. 


READING OF THE SCRIPTURES, BY REV. DR. YOUNG. 


ORIGINAL HYMN, WRITTEN BY GEORGE COOLIDGE, 


Member of the Associatiou. 


O God, Thy wondrous works and ways 
Our spirits awe, our homage raise. 
Thine everlasting laws we trace 

In all things—tokens of Thy grace! 
The elements Thy power provides ; 
Their fearful force ‘Thy wisdom guides. 


Thou settest free the whirling clouds, 
And swift destruction man enshrouds ; 
Thou biddest ocean’s surges roar, 

And crumbling navies strew the shore; 
Thou loosest subterranean fires, 

And, whelmed in ruin, man expires. 


Yet Thou the jewelled sky hast spread, 

A curtain o’er his honored head ; 

Thou teachest him the deep to course, 
Thou showest him the whirlwind’s source; 
Thy will appointest him the bound 

That girds his habitation round. 


Led by Thy hand, his steps explore 

Thy vast creation’s farthest shore ; 
Sustained by Thee, his feet descend 
Where molten gold and sapphires blend ; 
And when with heavy woes oppressed, 
His head is pillowed on Thy breast. 


O God, in this, our festive hour, 

‘We own Thy dread and sovereign power ; 
In mirth and gladness may we feel 

Thou dost Thy gracious smile reveal ; 
And as we clasp our brother’s hand, 
Upright before 'Thee may we stand. 





ADDRESS, BY JOSEPH H. BUCKINGHAM, Esa. 


ANTHEM. 


-_——— 


BENEDICTION, 


eee 


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